# Using \* as a wildcard in backtick commands

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/using-as-a-wildcard-in-backtick-commands/6094>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [September 26, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/using-as-a-wildcard-in-backtick-commands/6094 "2017-09-26T17:21:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![rdeits](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rdeits/32/286_2.png) [@rdeits](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rdeits)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/using-as-a-wildcard-in-backtick-commands/6094/3 "2017-09-26T22:43:10Z")

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To expand on that, the reason this doesn’t work is that expanding `*` to match any file in the directory is something that your _shell_ (generally bash) does for you. Julia commands are not run by the shell at all, but are just executed directly (see [https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/manual/running-external-programs/#Running-External-Programs-1](https://docs.julialang.org/en/stable/manual/running-external-programs/#Running-External-Programs-1) , specifically the third bullet point).

This also explains why bash aliases and shell functions can’t be used inside commands (unless your command itself launches bash and passes some string to bash to execute). See also [Success() does not give same result as running in terminal](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/success-does-not-give-same-result-as-running-in-terminal/1958) and [Getting Unwanted Quotes in System Calls](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/getting-unwanted-quotes-in-system-calls/2451)

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